Author Topic: King Louis XV and his family  (Read 62523 times)

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Offline Yelena Aleksandrovna

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Re: King Louis XV and his family
« Reply #90 on: October 14, 2009, 07:11:35 PM »
Do you know if existed "love" between Marie L. and Louis XV? I doubt so. Just political interests

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Re: King Louis XV and his family
« Reply #91 on: October 14, 2009, 07:19:09 PM »
I personally think it was more of a friendship than love, they did have an affection for eacthother maybe, but not love unfortunately. If Louis did love her, he probably wouldn't of had that many mistresses.

Offline Yelena Aleksandrovna

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Re: King Louis XV and his family
« Reply #92 on: October 14, 2009, 07:25:42 PM »
I agree, perhaps the fact that several kings of different places have lots of mistresses
was a form to prove that the majority of that marriages just were related to politic

Offline CountessKate

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Re: King Louis XV and his family
« Reply #93 on: October 16, 2009, 03:08:24 AM »
Marriage in the eighteenth century is always a difficult concept to grasp in our own times because it is so very different.  You have to keep in mind all the time that the choice of a partner was a complex affair of family, money, property, politics, and bloodlines.  Even at the very poor level these considerations were important, and at the other end of the scale, for royalty they were paramount.  While the mutual attraction of parties was agreed to be important, since a couple who loathed each other were not likely to produce an effective partnership or family, provided there was nothing absolutely wrong with your spouse you were supposed to get on with it and make the best of things.  And indeed, most managed it. 


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Re: King Louis XV and his family
« Reply #94 on: October 16, 2009, 07:58:21 PM »
Quote
She learned her lesson, was submissive and dutiful, but when she ceased to want to sleep with him he lost interest in her entirely.
Quote

Somewhere I read that her last pregnancy almost killed her and that the Doctor told her to get pregnant again would be her death. Does anyone else know this in other sources?
I have this down as a source:
Zieliński, Ryszard (1978). Polka na francuskim tronie. Czytelnik.

Offline CountessKate

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Re: King Louis XV and his family
« Reply #95 on: October 17, 2009, 06:19:40 AM »
Quote
Somewhere I read that her last pregnancy almost killed her and that the Doctor told her to get pregnant again would be her death. Does anyone else know this in other sources?
I have this down as a source:
Zieliński, Ryszard (1978). Polka na francuskim tronie. Czytelnik.

In 'La reine et la favorite' Simone Bertiere also suggests that as a reason why Marie Leszczynska basically shut the door in Louis XV's face in 1737 - i.e. the doctors had told her that her next pregnancy would be the death of her, but gives no references for it.   She also wrote that it was unlikely that Marie actually said "Toujours coucher, toujours accoucher!" ("always going to bed, always being brought to bed") as she felt it was not the sort of thing a woman of her personality would say.   

However, if the doctors had genuinely given her advice to have no further children, it would not have been something Louis XV and his whole court would not have known about - the Queen's pregnancies were a matter of state, and Versailles was not the sort of place you could keep information like that to yourself - the King would have been told, Marie's servants and Ladies in Waiting would have known, they would have told their husbands, and so it would have gone on - but diarists like the Duc de luynes makes no mention of such a thing happening.  And I cannot see any doctor in his right mind explaining to the King of France (who only had one son and heir after the death of the duc d'Anjou) that the Queen shouldn't do her duty and produce another son because it might kill her (especially since she'd not died herself had a healthy girl in her last pregnancy - was medical knowledge really that good in the eighteenth century?).  They might advise that it would be better to wait a while - but again, there is no evidence that they did this, and it would be a state matter of such importance it wouldn't have been secret.  Everyone knew when the King went to sleep with the Queen (or was turned away) - how could they not know if a doctor had advised her to shun the royal marital bed?

I have always thought that after 11 pregnancies in 10 years, Marie Leszczynska was utterly fed up with the whole business, and sex was not so alluring that she wanted to put up with the inevitable consequences again (even if she didn't actually say "Toujours coucher, toujours accoucher!").   She might also have been frightened - she was getting older, and her pregnancies weren't getting easier.   She might well have feared the outcome of further pregnancies.  But in the eighteenth century, and with the dynasty so close to extinction - if the Dauphin had died, Louis XV's next heirs were the princes of the house of Orleans - a direct refusal to have more children would have been seen as a dereliction of duty.  Hence the excuse she had used all along - that she would not sleep with the King on major saints' days - became extended to minor saints' days, until he got the message.   But I think by then, when he finally took off and didn't return, the marriage was in a rocky way (the Comtesse de Mailly had been his mistress for years albeit unofficially, as it were).  Louis XV was 27, very vigorous, loved hunting and intimate supper parties with his friends, and was keen on sex.  Marie Leszczynska was 34, exhausted with childbearing, not particularly keen on sex (or at least, afraid of the consequences), was interested in improving books and didn't seem to have any friends in common with her husband.  Not really a surprise that it all fell apart when the last tie, of sexual intimacy, was severed.  In this last I believe that Marie Leszczynska for once took the initiative - though I can see some writers prefer to believe that a woman so dutiful must have had some greater reason for refusing to sleep with her husband other than exhaustion and fear of constant childbirth. 

Mari

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Re: King Louis XV and his family
« Reply #96 on: November 12, 2009, 01:38:23 AM »
I haven't come across one on Queen Marie Leczinska so I am interested in the name of the Biography myself. I thought perhaps they had gotten it confused with Pompadour. But yes, it is looking like there were an awful lot of fortune tellers floating around.

Offline pers

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Re: King Louis XV and his family
« Reply #97 on: November 12, 2009, 11:34:37 AM »
Here is the info on the biography:

Marie Leczinska, femme de Louis XV (1703 - 1768).
La Rochefoucauld, Gabriel de
(Montracol, ., France)
Book Description: Monaco : Les Livres merveilleux, collection Les Reines de France, 1943, 263 p. Bibliographie. Biographie de Marie Leszczynska (1703-1768), princesse de Pologne et reine de France de 1725 à sa mort.

Offline violetta

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Re: King Louis XV and his family
« Reply #98 on: November 12, 2009, 05:04:37 PM »
I believe that the Queen`s maiden name was LESZCZYNSKA. not Leczinska. This is the original spelling of her family name. it is pronounced LE SH CH Y N` SKA.

Naslednik Norvezhskiy

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Re: King Louis XV and his family
« Reply #99 on: May 13, 2010, 08:47:09 PM »
Franz Stephan of Lorraine ceding Lorraine to her father in return for Tuscany really is an interesting parallell to the "Great Exchange" effected by the Treaty of Tsarskoe Selo a few decades later, whereby Catherine the Great ceded her late husband's ancestral Duchy of Holstein-Gottorp to the King of Denmark in return for Oldenburg, which she passed on to a junior line of her husband's family. Both fascinating examples of peaceful dynastic territorial arrondissement.


I believe that the Queen`s maiden name was LESZCZYNSKA. not Leczinska. This is the original spelling of her family name. it is pronounced LE SH CH Y N` SKA.

Yes, it was Leszczyńska, which I gather strictly is pronounced /l ɛ ʂ ʈ͡ʂ ɨ ɲ s k a/ (a bit more loosely transscribed as /l ɛ ʃ t͡ʃ i ɲ s k a/), approximately Lèche-tchigne-ska in French orthography.
« Last Edit: May 13, 2010, 09:13:10 PM by Fyodor Petrovich »

Offline Yelena Aleksandrovna

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Re: King Louis XV and his family
« Reply #100 on: May 31, 2010, 03:17:34 PM »
The Queen


Offline Yelena Aleksandrovna

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Re: King Louis XV and his family
« Reply #101 on: July 06, 2010, 01:47:48 PM »
As a girl with family

Horseback

The Queen

Offline Yelena Aleksandrovna

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Re: King Louis XV and his family
« Reply #102 on: July 06, 2010, 01:48:12 PM »
Posted before, but now full
« Last Edit: July 06, 2010, 01:54:44 PM by Kaiserin Alzbeta Sissi »